Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
